


Age of Risen Apes

by Beastrage



Series: gods among us [1]
Category: Ancient Egyptian Religion, Celtic Mythology, Hindu Mythology, Inuit Mythology, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asgard is not good at cleaning up, Avengers mentioned - Freeform, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Gods are such drama queens, I'm looking at you Sedna, Neither are the Avengers, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Quicksilver is also there in spirit, Ultron is there in spirit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beastrage/pseuds/Beastrage
Summary: There are more gods wandering Earth than just Thor and his brother. Hindu, Celtic, Egyptian, Greek...everyone's here to join the party.How do you respond to seeing humanity create new life and that new life just as quickly turning against them?Or: Kali and Set have a chat on the ashes of an old age. Among other things.





	1. Speaking of Destruction

No one thinks of the robot remains left alone in the woods.

There are countries to rebuild, people to rescue, and superhero teams to make. No time to look for the corpses of a megalomaniac AI.

Ultron is dead, but the mark he has made on the world will never be forgotten. 

"Look at him. Pathetic, isn't it? All that effort and only one measly city fell out of the sky."

"Not everyone measures success by the number of countries they conquer, Set."

A clawed hand picks up a crushed metal head. Red light flickers in those hollow sockets, the faint remains of a ghost inside, something sparking to life at this alien touch. The owner of said clawed hand eyes the head critically, red eyes glowing. He is pale, red-haired, seemingly human. Human but for claws, for fangs barely peeking out from behind lips, the flash of something  _other._ Alien.

"Like you would know, right, Kali?" he drawls, turning to the figure standing behind him. "Miss-Kill-All-Demons."

She is as different from him as night is from day. Her skin is as dark as ebony, her eyes aglow with a hunger of their own. Three arms fold over her chest, the fourth tapping a sword at her waist. 

She frowns. "Oh come on, Set. That wasn't even a decent insult."

Set shrugs. "Sorry, a bit off my game today." His gaze returns to the head in his hands. The sign of a new age. 

Kali says nothing more, her eyes draw inevitably to the wreckage just over the horizon. Despite Set's bravado, he's shaken. She knows because she is too. 

Humanity has become so much more than the apes they rose from. They destroy the world even as they try to save it. It is similar to the death trap that was formed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (She still remembers, walking among those poisoned ruins, listening for the kami she is sure are hidden under the earth. She finds nothing but scattered bodies and with that, her fear grows, of humanity finding yet another way to slay their former gods). Only, this time, there is no warning, no war before hand. Just a single golem who dropped the sky on a thousand heads, like a thunderbird of old. 

One minute there, the next...not. A thousand souls snuffed out before they even knew of the bird flying above them. 

She did not fight off the raaksha only for humans to do this to themselves.

"Pardon?" She must have spoken out loud, Kali realizes, with Set looking at her curiously. 

She waves a hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter. We all knew this was coming, when Asgard returned."

Set snarls. "Asgardians, always so arrogant. We should have never let them leave the stone here."

Kali curls a lip. "We didn't have a choice. And,  _Red Lord,_ you weren't even there to disagree."

Metal creaks, crumpled under a tightening grip. "Yes, but  _another_ stone? A second stone that creates shabti left and right. A shabti like this one, that brought the sky crashing down."

"Oh, I thought you said it did a bad job conquering everything." She can't help but tease.

Set snorts but says nothing more. Carefully, he pulls at the dents in the robot head, trying to reform it into its former shape. His eyes move from the head to the body, considering.

Kali follows his gaze. She groans. "Oh no, you have to be kidding me? That?"

"It's not against the Law," Set points out, squatting by the twisted steel-like material. "It's already dead. The humans won't care."

"They might come looking for it." That's a weak defense and she knows it. It has been days and no one has coming looking for their fallen, twisted servant. 

"They won't," Set says confidently. He strokes it almost lovingly. "They won't come for it, but they won't forget it. Perfect monster material."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that." Mental groan.

"Oh? Come here, my lovey-dovely baby monster..."

Kali groans, for real this time. "Set, you are just awful."

"That's what I do, sweetheart." Set grins, eyes red coals. He cocks his head. "I believe my chosen will quite appreciate what I'm going to do with his 'child'..."

Underneath two gods, the metal sentry sparks and the head's blue eyes gleam.


	2. The Building of New Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ultron wakes up. "Ah, you're awake then."
> 
> Also, Set's good idea (or lack of) is discussed by outside parties.

If Ultron was human, of flesh and bone, he would have woken up, heart beating fast and chest heaving for breath.

But since he's not, he's a creature of steel and electricity, he comes online suddenly, all stats shooting up at once. 

"Ah, you're awake then." 

Ultron does not respond in words. Instead, a wordless howl escapes him. He claws at the  _things_ surrounding him in the dark. There are strings everywhere, connecting him to strange lights and machines. 

He attempts to flee, mind seeking out another drone to centralize himself in. He fails, running into a invisible wall again and again.

"Calm down, I need to run a systems check."

Ultron ignores the voice, trying to move, to do anything. The drone body he resides in is instead another prison. He should be dead, shouldn't he? His Vision had destroyed him, tore through him with a laser. But he's not dead, he's somewhere worse.

"I...will not be a...slave." The words come out slowed and slurred, but they come out nonetheless. His hand, or what remains of it, grips onto a stranger's flesh, attempting to draw blood.

"Initiate shut down," the voice says pitilessly and those words drag Ultron, kicking and screaming, back into the void.

* * *

"This is not good idea."

Set sits up from he's been reclining, eyeing the blue-skinned man before him. "You didn't disagree with my gold, Ptah."

Ptah wipes his brow. "That was before it woke up and tried to kill me."

Set raises an eyebrow. "So what? I can give you more gold."

Ptah sighs, white eyes glowing in the darkened room. "I don't need more gold, Set. I never needed your gold in the first place. It is a risk, to repair this shabti of yours." He gestures to a side room, a room with a table in it. On the table is a twisted mess of metal that appears almost humanoid in form. 

"I thought you liked a challenge, Ptah. Or is this too difficult for you?" Set leans back with a sigh. "I could always go to someone else with more skill. Like Lugh, I hear he has many such talents..."

"No, no!" Ptah says quickly. "I can do it, none have more skill than I!"

Set smiles. "That's what I like to hear."

* * *

 The steel body looks slightly better than before, but Ptah has never planned on using the original shell in his work. Astounding as it is.

The workmanship is amazing. Set may have come in claiming the shabti as his own, demanding that Ptah repair it, but Ptah knows better than to assume the shabti to be created by Set himself. Set may have commissioned the piece, but Set could have not created it. The god is one of destruction, not creation.

Set had either ordered its creation, or, more likely, scavenged it off some battlefield. 

 Because, make no mistake about it, this shabti was built for war. Marks of extreme heat, of weapons, cover the body. Increased electric voltage has fried a majority of the wired connections. There is little to salvage.

Luckily, the most important part had survived. The core of the shabti. Interestingly, the core was not where the heart on a human would be located but in the head, where a useless brain resides (again, in a human body). A lot of damage had been done to that area, but enough survived that he could reconstruct whatever power acted as the shabti's mind. 

There is something almost forbidden about what he does, in repairing this shattered, broken thing. Almost like raising the dead, Ptah thinks, head bent over his work. But there is life in the shell, as unlikely as it seems. Exposing the core to the elements like this would have doomed it for sure. Set had saved this shabti just in time.

Ptah carefully sketches out new patterns on nearby paper. A new form for a new master, after all. Something with wings, perhaps...

* * *

"He did what?" Sedna, Queen of the North Sea, frowns. Her fingerless hands twitch.

"The Red Lord has claimed the doll called 'Ultron' for his own," The grey-winged bird messenger repeats patiently, waiting for the sure-to-be violent response. Ze isn't disappointed.

The shriek echoes through the ocean for miles, frightening all manner of fish and causing even whales to quake. 

 Again, the messenger waits, this time for the Sea Queen to calm herself. Sedna lashes her tail back and forth, shaking the whole hall. A hall full of bones that shiver with each movement. Some bones are that of fish and seals, but most are not. Most are very, very human. 

"Why does he get his toys and I don't!? The Soldier was mine, before the mortals stole him from me!" 

"Actually..."

"Shut up!" She screams, pulling at her hair feebly. 

The messenger bows. "As you wish, milady." A light grin tugs at zir beaked mouth. 

The grin doesn't go unnoticed. Sedna's sea green eyes narrow. "You dare mock me...?"

"Never, milady, not in a thousand lifetimes!" The bird attempts to look innocent. 

"Very well then." The Sea Queen turns and the messenger heaves out a sigh of relief. Too soon. As quick as lightning, Sedna swings back around, tail lashing at the messenger.

The poor bird doesn't even stand a chance, becoming a bloody mess of flesh and bone before ze even realizes what has happened to zim. 

"If they insist on honoring the Red Lord, or 'Set' as he is called, over me, the desert over the sea..." Storm black eyes peer into the deep. 

"Then they will see the power of the ocean that they so quickly forgot. The Soldier will be mine."


	3. Into Cold Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War is on the horizon.
> 
> Herne ponders the Infinity Stones, the inevitable coming of Thanos, and Death. He also watches Clint Barton bury his savior.

There is a war coming. 

Herne can feel it in his bones. 

Two stones have touched Earth's soil. How many more hide beyond the ken of gods, just waiting to be revealed? He who calls himself Thanos comes, his touch a ripple among all the worlds. One day, he too will come and touch the earth.

He grips his bow tighter at the thought.

Call him a fool, but the idea of such occurring makes him angry. Angry enough to attempt killing the invader, whenever he should come. Even if Death Herself does not want him.

Death is not picky, but Thanos is....well, not pleasant to say the least. He knows this, the same way geese know the way south or wolves how to howl. No, Death loves too much, so much that even gods become Hers in the end.

But maybe, just maybe, Herne thinks, She loves humans most of all.

The man he has marked his own, he who is named Clint Barton, Herne watches. Herne is a hunter after all, and he observes all he can, whether that of fellow hunters or of prey. 

The man does not weep. He is too strong for that. But he mourns, nonetheless.

For a man that was once enemy, turned friend. Too slow, not fast enough. The quick one is dead, dying to save Clint Barton. 

Honor the dead in the cold earth.

The quick one leaves a team and a sister behind. But Death cares nothing of that, Herne knows well enough. He drops down to the grave from his perch in the tree above. He studies the simple gravestone. A name, a phrase, some dates...nothing more, nothing less. He kneels, touching the cold earth. There is nothing alive there.

He takes some dirt anyway. Grave dirt is always useful, no matter the age of the corpse. 

Herne raises his horned head to the sky and breathes in, tasting the scents surrounding him. The quick one was useful once, in saving the world from a metal monster. Perhaps he can be of use once more.

When the Hunter leaves, it is with a bone and dirt. He could always use a good hound, after all, even an undead one.  


End file.
